As consumers become more and more technologically savvy, businesses and marketers have worked quickly to keep up. As a result, many companies are left questioning what they aren't doing that they should be, or what they should do next to stay in front of the right people, in the right place, at the right time, in an increasingly digital world.

To address some of these questions, we have partnered with The Wharton School to launch ourFast.Forward. Channel on YouTube, which highlights insightful perspectives from industry experts and academics on how marketers can stay ahead in the changing landscape. (You might have seen a similar site launched by our UK marketing team in partnership with London Business School earlier this year.)

In over 100 short videos on www.youtube.com/fastforward, industry and academic thought leaders — including Jerry Wind, Lauder Professor at The Wharton School; Nancy Hill, CEO of AAAA; and our very own CEO, Eric Schmidt — share their views and insights on how the marketing world has changed. Perhaps more importantly, the videos also take a look at the implications of those changes for marketers and consumers. These experts tackle topics ranging from the importance of innovation and insights, to the new definition of speed. On the flipside, we also have videos from interviews with everyday folks, where we learn about the roles advertising and online content play in their daily lives.

In addition to the library of videos, the brand channel offers a "barometer" gauging consumer confidence levels and links to free tools designed to help marketers understand the online world a little better, as well as information on the Future of Advertising. A Wharton-led, research-based project, the Future of Advertising aims to explore and address a number of the business and marketing challenges in the current "Advertising Reality", while developing new models and empirical generalizations for advertising.

And given that it is Advertising Week in NYC, we will be filming sessions throughout the week's events (as well as getting some behind the scenes footage) and posting the videos to the Events section of www.youtube.com/fastforward. So if you're interested in hearing what others really think about "advertising", if you want to check out what's happening at Advertising Week, or if you have your own opinion that you'd like to voice, check it out.